Samurai Wannabe

Watching Japanese anime was one of my favourite things as a child. I would wake up early on the weekends and run after school to be able to watch the Ninja Turtles, Dragon Ball and Ranma 1/2 amongst others. The sense of justice and the effort and discipline to improve intrigued me.

It wasn’t until much later in my adult life I decided to give martial arts a try. I have been a Kung Fu practitioner for a few years. The past year I have been learning Praying Mantis Northern Style. It focuses on continuous movement with each technique giving birth to the next. It prompts to action being natural and reflexive; to stay relaxed and change the stepping pattern. Its philosophy is easily translatable to every day life. It is also applicable in a business context where the need of flexibility and agility is expected to go hand in hand with a constant bias towards action, a culture of continuous learning and experimentation.

Sometimes when I’m learning new moves I get frustrated. There is so many things to remember! My body coordination is not good enough, I’m not flexible enough, I’m not strong enough….Our Sifus spend neither time nor energy in debating complaints and keep the focus of the class in one thing and one thing only:

- Keep on practicing-